


Searching On a Late Winter's Night

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Confessions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He watches Lady Brienne rear the horse's reins harshly and careen far and farther through the line of trees to the left of the road, and Ser Jaime fists his own harnesses in frustration, shouting something at her back – Podrick isn't sure, but it might have been: "What, and break your oath, like me?'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Searching On a Late Winter's Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt:
> 
> #28 — "Pod tells Jaime what Brienne had done. Jaime freaks out, because previously he yelled at her and drove her away. They’re searching for her in a winter night in the forest."

Podrick isn't the gossipy type. He simply isn't. The words just don't come out right for him. When he thinks he knows what he wants to say, he changes his mind mid-sentence, making him look like a fool and fumbling ensues.. and well, Podrick isn't a fan of gossip, mostly because he is as far from glib as imaginable..  
  
So one can imagine his hesitation, as he watches Lady Brienne rear the horse's reins harshly and careen far and farther through the line of trees to the left of the road, and Ser Jaime fists his own harnesses in frustration, shouting something at her back – Pod isn't sure, but it might have been:  _what, and break your oath, like me?_  
  
Part of him, the little boy that remains, aches, because he just got left, again. He liked Lady Brienne, as much as he liked Tyrion. But he smothers that selfish side, because above all, he serves, and he fingers the rope burn on his neck as he nudges his horse timidly from the shadows.. daring to approach Ser Jaime, who remains on the road muttering angrily to himself.  
  
Cursing profusely, his gold hand tangled hopelessly in the reins, Jaime stiffens when he sees the approaching shadow. He lifts his head, half wondering if the wench returned, but finds, peculiarly, that it's a mere boy, head bowed, thick brow drawn tight over downcast eyes. “Lost?” he asks the boy.  
  
“No. Ser.” Podrick allows the hand against his throat to slip down and his eyes flick up; Jaime is staring directly at him, unassuming and curious, and even a bit confused. “I.. I was wondering... Does s-ser know where my lady.. Ser Brienne. Where she has gone.. off to.. to?”  
  
“And you are..?”  
  
“Squire. I mean.. P-Podrick. That's my name. But.. I'm her s-squire.”  
  
A rich laugh issues from Jaime. “Brienne's squire?” he muses to himself and seems highly amused by it.  _She would choose someone.. an outcast, like herself,_ he thinks, with no amount of distaste, but rather, another reason she is like no other woman he's ever met. Then after a moment, his face returns to a more somber level, tips to the side, eyes seeking to the left, where the trampled path lays. Jaime shrugs. “Seems she's run off.”  
  
Podrick wonders why, thinks if he should ask, and feels a bit uncertain.. a bit  _upset_ at the knight – and he's not scared, he can fight, he's got a sword, and he's killed a knight of the Kingsguard before. There can't be that much a difference from the commander of the Kingsguard, from any other regular knight apart of the ancient order.  
  
He might of. In defense for Ser Brienne. But Podrick also remembers Lady Brienne's fever mutterings. He wasn't sure he could count the amount of times she had said 'Jaime' and 'Kingslayer', but he does remember how many times she's saved his life – once, and that is enough.  
  
“Ser.” The sharpness of that ser turned Jaime's eyes to the boy again. “I-I..” He's changed his mind in the middle of the sentence. Fumbles. Feels a heat gather and pool in his neck, and finds the words hard to form inside his mouth. After a moment of paddling, struggling silence, Ser Jaime narrows his eyes.  
  
“Are you alright, boy?”  
  
“Yes.” Pod straightens a little, and he isn't – will never be – much of a gossiper, but he manages his next few sentences in relative coherency,  _he_ thinks; “Stoneheart captured us, and my lady, she said your name, and then they asked her to kill you, but she couldn't. So they decided to hang us.. until Ser Brienne, she shouted, sword.. or rather, she meant..  _okay_. But they kept Hyle.. because for leverage, because.. my lady she said they were to be wed, and that.. but.. she does not think she will go back for him.. and..”  
  
Ser Jaime holds up his hand for silence. “I'm sorry. You're going to have to try that again. Did you say the wench is going to marry someone?” His lips twists slightly, in what is trying to be a smile. “Who is this Stoneheart? And why does she want me dead... actually, I can imagine a hundred whys, never mind answering that. Skip to the part where our lady Brienne is saying my name.”  
  
Podrick can't decide if the knight is mocking or serious; the man's face is arranged in a mirthful way, but those green eyes seem heavy, and sharp, and focused entirely, individually on him. “Lady Stoneheart, she runs the brotherhood with no banners.. she made.. she had Ser Brienne swear to bring you to her, kill you, and then.. then she will get to live.. and she can have Hyle back.”  
  
“Hyle, you keep saying this name. I can't remember..”  
  
“H-hunt,” Pod supplies. “Hyle Hunt.”  
  
“Right.” It doesn't ring any bells for Jaime, but his thoughts are far too consumed with all the other things the boy is saying, to focus on the counter-part of his survival – the life weighing against his own, depending solely on Brienne's favor to one or the other, one will live and the other will die for it to happen. He can't imagine which is which. “Are you saying there is no Sansa Stark and the Hound, then? The wench lied?”  
  
Podrick doesn't know about any cover story, so he nods.  
  
“Right,” Jaime repeats. He is staring at the path now, a bleak tide of remorse tugging at him. “So I've sent..” his voice tapers off, the thought finishing in his head, _so I've just sent the wench running, after growing upset at her, for not telling me where her scars came from.. and more specifically, who tried to hang her, only to find out it was me._  He was the reason for her mutilated neck. Somehow, that spears him painfully, right in the chest – which is odd, because he knows heaps of people who've been harmed on his behalf, but he's never stopped to regret it, or linger on something he can not change nor help. It's not as though he pained himself over the loss of Brandon Stark's legs, after he pushed the boy out of the tower – sure, he's come to regret the action, but more for the trouble it caused, than the boy himself.  
  
So Jaime is at loss to process the flare of concern, and regret, and worry inside him.  
  
“And you're saying the wench was planning on not trading me out for this Hyle Hunt?” he asks, to make sure, if only to cling to something, to find steady ground, _familiar_ ground, and something to distract him from the other things.   
  
“I-I think.. I.. she did.. didn't know.”  
  
“Right.” Podrick wonders if that flash of panic in Ser Jaime's eyes is for himself, or for Lady Brienne.  
  
There is a pause, where Jaime fingers the horse's reins, eyes cast there, and Podrick waits.. for something.. for an answer to his first question – when Jaime suddenly pivots in his saddle and steers his horse to the left. “Well, let's go find the wench. I have some new questions for her.”  
  
Except, they don't find her.  
  
After following the clear path she left, they come across her horse, abandoned. It mills about a small clearing in the trees, nibbling here and there. The packs once tied across its back are strewn about, everywhere.. Podrick dismounts and deftly picks up the things, and replaces them on the horse, before taking its reins and remounting on his own. Jaime is immune to that hustle as he circles the area, eyes keen on a large, ungainly form, and.. a little absurdly, a little necessarily, searching the greenery for stains of red, or signs of struggle. He finds none, thankfully.  
  
They continue to go left, unsure which direction Brienne may have gone. Distantly, Jaime hears a river and careens toward that for awhile. Soon enough it's clear she's not there. Snow starts to fall nearer to sunset, and it's already dim out, with the clouds so gray and thick overhead. Podrick listens to Jaime, whenever the knight speaks, which is rare – he is too focused on tracking, and circling around and making sure she did not slip by them. Often, he'll call out her name; a simple, direct shout, at first.. then increasingly growing desperate, as night falls upon them.  
  
They abandon their horses as well once the sun is gone. It is too dark to ride at night in the winter, with no stars or moon to lend light, and in the Riverlands it is too easy to trip over a tree root, or rocks, or an unseen, unheard, frozen-over stream. They take to leading the mounts through the inky part of the forest and riding when possible.  
  
Wolves howl in the distance and Podrick tries to deny the fact that he quickened his pace to walk beside the Kingslayer. Ser Jaime doesn't mind. He calls out once more, not wench, but  _Brienne_ , this time. There is still no returning shout – though he supposes he was not expecting one.  
  
He begins to wonder if she will not come back. Perhaps it was not his angry words that drove her away, but her final decision, to allow him to live, instead of this Hyle Hunt, and she is determined to break her oath – and it seems that adds some salt to his wounds, because of the words he'd chosen to fling at her back. Unknowingly, he'd been trying to convince her to kill him, by telling her to keep her oaths. Though, really, at that time, he'd been referring to the oath she made to him to return Sansa Stark. But even with that, he knows he shouted it more to sting the wench than anything. She'd called him Kingslayer, just before, and had consistently shoved him out, telling him she did not share details of her life to  _someone like him_.  
  
It could have meant any number of things.  
  
Only, there's no other men like him, so the wench could only mean  _him_  specifically.  
  
(Jaime tells himself it is not irrational, or even unimaginable, to be upset by this. It is offending. For someone to say that to anyone. Even dis-including their history together. So it's not wrong of him, or strange, for him to be stung, he tells himself. Of course he'd be offended.)  
  
It is only his wish to hurt her back, that stumped him.  
  
And now, makes him regret.  
  
When the wind is a splintering, icy fist to their faces, he decides it's time to give it a rest and set up some sort of camp. Mostly for the boy, who is shuddering and shaking. It takes another half hour to find an acceptable place; a little alcove between two oaks. As Podrick works to set up something for a fire, Jaime wanders away from where he's tied the horses and careens his head around, trying in vain to see through the darkness and specks of white. “I'm going to look for usable firewood,” he calls over his shoulder at Podrick. “Don't go off.” Somehow, he's not sure the wench would be glad that he'd allowed her squire to be ripped to pieces by a wolf pack.  
  
He goes out further than he normally would to simply get dry wood. It's hard, to find some, but it's not impossible – the snow is at best, ankle deep. But adding. By the time he gets back, Podrick is huddled underneath a coarse blanket that'd been stuffed in the bedrolls, and he's leaning against the flank of his horse, as it lays on the ground, sharing its warmth. Jaime's had many horses throughout his life, through tourneys and war, but none of them have ever offered him that on a cold night – even now, his and Brienne's horses remain standing, unconcerned. He decides he likes the boy.  
  
“D..do.. do you t-think she's.. she's alright? Ser?” Podrick asks.  
  
Jaime pushes aside the snow, at the base of one of the oak trees, and places the wood underneath the shelter of gnarled and twisted tree roots. Pod offers two damp rocks he'd been clutching in his pockets.  
  
“I wouldn't doubt it,” Jaime replies. “Probably better off than us at this point.”  
  
Pod squint out in the distance. “Do..” he trails off.  
  
“Do?” Jaime quips. He curses softly when his hand slips and the rock scrapes across his knuckles.  
  
“Do you.. th-think she'll come back? Lady Brienne.”  
  
Blood wells through the thin layer of skin that's left behind and Jaime tongues the wound, the taste bitter and salty, and the feel of his breath a sting to his pallid flesh. He clenches the muscles, glad to watch the fingers move and screech in protest, stiff from cold – but he's still glad, to feel it, for it not to be so useless as his stump.  
  
Jaime glances up fleetingly at the boy. “If I know my wench she'll come back.”  
  
It is much later, when they have a good fire going, both curled as close to it as they dare, that Jaime realizes he will not be sleeping this night. His thoughts won't lie still, so he sits up, pulls the blankets around his shoulders and stares up at the treetops. There are no stars. A horse wickers to his right. Podrick snores softly, shuddering with each wracking shiver, that runs through him.  
  
Jaime pulls himself to his feet, shoves on his boots, and goes to his horse. The animal jerks away from the touch of his gold hand – so bitterly cold in this season, so he pulls it off. It is useless anyhow, when he's riding, and he shoves it into the pack tied to the back of boy's horse; it has the potential to save his life, as much as it is does to end it, but Jaime supposes that is the best he can do. If he does not come back, that is all he can offer.  
  
He has no idea where to go, where to start, or anything. So he goes toward the river again. The ride is slow going, and he's extra careful about where he leads his mare. She stumbles twice. Jaime unintentionally jerks on her reins when he sees a flash of movement on the side – it was only a rabbit, with a coat blotched brown and white, a late turner.  
  
“Brienne!”  
  
The bellow seems to echo back at him.  
  
After some time, the moon shows its face, sending thin shafts of white light throughout the forest. Eerily, with the darkness encroaching around him, and the flurries of snow, twisting and falling in the shadows, he sees half-imagined shapes in them, figures, faces – the dull glow of the moon reminding him of a certain sword, pulsing with light, in a dream, some time ago.  
  
He picks up pace.  
  
There has to be another reason she ran off, he begins to think. It's not as if he's never been rude to her. The wench is stubborn, and her walls thicker than  _the_ Wall, so he knows it can't sting when  _someone like him_ , calls her out on hiding things, and keeping secrets from people who well deserve to hear, and then, the tip of the scale, insinuating her to be an oathbreaker. That couldn't have stung her, if she'd meant to lead him to his death anyway. It wouldn't have made her flee, if Jaime really was nothing but a Kingslayer, child murder, and sister-fucker to her.  
  
For it to hurt, Jaime had to be right. Which  _if_  he was, then that meant he did have a right to know about the scars, and that Brienne was keeping secret.. and she.. she planned on being an oathbreaker, all along. Meaning, she'd never really planned on bringing him to this Lady Stoneheart to be ambushed.  
  
Jaime feels twice the fool for all his words, and throwing her actions – that were purely to save him - into her face. It's not as though he wanted her to keep the oath that was to kill him; he likes living, you see, it's not all that bad.. even with one hand. There is still time to fill that white book with good things, justices that he can fit into petty places, to make up for the past.  
  
Starting, here, in these woods.  
  
He finds her sitting hunched beside a boulder. It is almost hard to distinguish her from the stone, she sits so still and her armor is the same pale hue – the gleam is what catches his eyes, the moonlight, playing against the metal, and he slips off the side of his horse. He approaches quietly. Brienne does not look up; in her lap is Oathkeeper, her gloved fingers stroking the sword slowly, thoughtfully. By the time she notices Jaime, he's standing just in front of her, throwing his shadow across the snow between them.  
  
“Not that I don't mind a good chase..” Jaime begins, uncertain of how to apologize..  
  
“I'm sorry,” she cuts in. The wench's teeth are chattering vaguely behind her bluing lips. “I should not have run off like that. It was not very knightly, nor lady-like.”  
  
“No. I am sorry. I should not have said what I did.”  
  
Jaime's ghost hand is itching, to do something, anything. He reaches out toward the blanket tucked underneath the horse's saddle, warmed by the mare. It is a little musty and damp, but it is something. He half kneels, fumbles with the thing in one hand and steadies himself with his stump against her shoulder, when he thinks he will teeter over – and she does not flinch away from the touch – so Jaime continues, reaching around the wench and positioning the blanket over her. Her hands move reluctantly from the sword to clutch the fabric over her breasts.. and her eyes raise, uncertainly, cautiously, a stunning blue in such a close proximity, in the frosty night, their breath white smoke, and the starlight making her hair gleam silver.  
  
Brienne turns her face to the side, when Jaime does not immediately return to his feet, displaying the broken cheek, gauged and uneven, and uglier than the freckles ever were. He does not recoil. “Podrick told me about what happened. What this is about.”  
  
There is a flare of emotion in her eyes; panic, shock, and uncertainty. They widen, then narrow slightly, and Brienne considers Jaime's face in the shadowy light. “And?”  
  
 _That is the real question_ , he thinks. Now what? Does he reach deep down in him to his noble side and let her guide him to his death to save someone else? Does he plead with her? Does he grow angry, feel betrayed by the fact that she'd lied about Sansa and the Hound and potentially led him to an ambush?  
  
None of those sound very appealing to him.  
  
“And I think this damned night is turning into a blizzard,” Jaime says, briskly, glaring up at the clouds, and he offers her his hand. “Let's get out of this, go back to the fire, and get warm, before we worry about anything else.”  
  
Brienne stares at the hand, the arm attached to it, then his eyes. He wonders if she will object, if she wants an answer now – an answer he does not have – or something else, something worse than just an answer – something he does not know anything about – but she doesn't. The wench reaches out a hand. The two of them pull each other up from the ground and, after a slight disagreement, mount the horse together.  
  
As they wander back toward Podrick and the waiting fire, her knuckles are white with grip, fingers wrapped around the edge of the saddle, to the sides of her hips. Jaime unintentionally jerks the horse to the side – when he says he's seen something – and Brienne's arms lurch around his waist, hugging tight.  
  
His smile is lost in the darkness of the night.


End file.
